The term metaverse is widely used to describe a fully immersive 3D virtual space, which includes a virtual environment where humans are represented by an avatar. In this way, users may interact with other users, both socially and economically, through their respective avatars and with software agents in a cyber space. The virtual environment in a metaverse is built upon a metaphor of the real world, but in most cases, without the physical limitations of the real world. In a metaverse application, such as Second Life®, users are allowed to have friends, create groups, and talk and mingle with strangers, fly, and teleport to different locations, and different metaverses.
On occasion a user may want to group together with other users and travel through the metaverse application as a group. For example, avatar A, avatar B, and avatar C may want to go to an event together. Each user's avatar can travel to the event under the control of the individual user. Alternatively, the user of avatar A can control their avatar to go to the event and then send invitations to the users of avatar B and avatar C, asking them to teleport to the event to join them. Once an avatar teleports to an event at the request of another user, the avatar lands next to the other user that sent the teleport invitation. Once all of the avatars are together at an event, they may want to remain together at the event. This may include moving around at a particular location, for example, browsing a shopping mall within the metaverse.
Conventionally, each user controls his or her avatar independently of the group. In some instances, remaining as a group can be difficult to do because each user must keep track of the movements of the other user's avatars to determine the direction the group is heading. This becomes more challenging when a user in the group controls their avatar to fly or teleport to a new location. In order for the remaining users to regroup with the target avatar that teleported or flew away, each user determines the location of the target avatar that departed the group, and then each user controls their avatar to travel to the same location, although the target avatar that first departed may have since moved from that location. Alternatively, a user could request a teleport invitation, from the user that departed from the group, to teleport to the location of the user that departed. In order for a group of avatars to remain as a group, each avatar keeps track of the movements of everyone else in the group, in addition to what the group is doing at the time, such as shopping. Thus, the current solution to maintain a group of avatars in a metaverse application is limited because each member independently tries to track the locations of the other members of the group.